Liberty City jurors unable to reach verdicts

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Published Saturday, April 12, 2008

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A federal jury considering charges against six South Florida men accused of plotting to blow up the Chicago Sears Tower and the Miami FBI headquarters reported Friday it has been unable to reach verdicts for any of the defendants.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard instructed the jury of seven men and five women to continue trying to reach agreement. However, news that the panel is at an impasse after 10 days of deliberations raises the possibility that the high-profile case could be poised for a second mistrial.

The defendants, struggling construction workers who hung out in a Liberty City warehouse, are charged with conspiring to support terrorism, to destroy buildings and to wage war on the United States. If convicted of all counts, the men face up to 70 years in prison.

An earlier trial in the so-called Liberty City 7 case ended in a mistrial Dec. 13.

after jurors agreed to acquit one man but could not reach verdicts for the other six.

Prosecutors contend the group's leader, Batiste, believed he was a divine messenger sent to destroy the U.S. government. He recruited the other men as "soldiers" and sought an alliance with al-Qaida to carry out attacks on U.S. soil, prosecutor Richard Gregorie told jurors in his closing argument.

But defense lawyers called the case a setup concocted by two paid FBI informants. At both trials, Batiste testified that he only pretended to be a terrorist to con money from an informant posing as an al-Qaida operative.

Jeffrey Agron, who served as jury foreman in the first trial, said he was not surprised the new jury is struggling over how to interpret the evidence, which includes hundreds of recorded conversations and telephone calls.

Some jurors on the first panel believed Batiste's version of events and stood firmly against any convictions, said Agron, a religious school administrator from Pinecrest.

"There were four people who really held out that no matter what they saw this as a scam," he said.

The jury's deliberations continue Monday. If the group is unable to come to agreement, the next step would be for Lenard to read what is known as an Allen charge, telling jurors it is their duty to reach a verdict if at all possible.